Tony – My Story

Life before Christ…
I came to know Christ as an adult just like my wife and most of my family only I was the last one to accept Christ. My wife kept on bugging me to go to Church but the more she wanted me to come, the less I wanted to go. Then one day she quit asking me to Church and suggested I read the Bible. I thought that was a good idea, so I started reading the New Testament. At the same time I started carpooling to work with a Mormon who would tell me what they believed and I would compare that to what I was reading. Mormonism seemed manmade but the Bible did not. After the birth of our first son Donald, I started really looking for truth.

When I met Christ…
It was from reading the Bible that I finally understood that I was a sinner and that Jesus didn’t just die an innocent death, He died for me. In May of 1983 in my own home I prayed to God to forgive me of my sins and thanked Him for the sacrifice of His Son for me.

Since I met Christ…
Since that day in May my life has completely changed. God has revealed Himself to me and let me in on His Kingdom plan. My wife and I have seen God start two new Churches in The Colony, save my wife and daughter Rebekah from death during childbirth, save me from a head-on collision with a dump truck, and bring salvation to people in China and South America. All of our children have accepted Christ. I see God at work in everything. Recently, He has helped me to better understand His Word and explain it to others. He has helped me solve problems at my work as a computer programmer that I could never figure out on my own. The best thing is that I have a future hope, I am not alone, I have a helper and comforter, and each day is an adventure.

Chapter 4 ‘How to have a good fight’

(The answers to the questions I ask are in the comments.)

People…What to do with them?…. I love John Ortberg’s title “Everybody is normal…until you get to know them”. Once you get to know them and rub up against each other there will always be places of conflict. If you haven’t experienced much conflict it is probably because your group is not really getting to know each other. Conflict will definitely come.

So, how do you react on the Tightrope? Kindness………………………………………..Confrontation.

Bill and Russ offer Healthy Conflict as the resolution to this challenge.Blog Discussion Question (BDQ1): Tell us a story of challenging confrontation you’ve experienced in a LifeGroup. I have a funny one and a serious one. So, since we don’t always get along should we try to fix that or just live with it. What is the motivation? Bill and Russ answer that by looking at our primary verse for LifeGroups, John 17:21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. Christ’s prayer was for us to experience the same level of oneness that He and the Father experience. That is a high bar! But the end of the verse highlights why. So the world will believe. People’s lives are at stake. We must get this oneness thing down so that people far from God will believe that He sent Christ to initiate a relationship with them. The confrontation challenge is one we must take head on and win, because the stakes are so high. Reread that section from page 97 through 101 and let God’s Holy Spirit quicken your spirit to fight for oneness.

 “Healthy conflict can facilitate some of the most transforming moments your group will ever have.” Pg. 104 I’ve said that healthy conflict can serve as steroids in building oneness. It is really an open opportunity to become one. BDQ2: Have you experienced this in a group?

The group stage diagram on pg. 105 is great and very helpful in preparing each one of us as leaders in anticipating what kind of conflict is around the corner and realizing that it is normal. The authors list a few other factors: Relational Unawareness, Extra Care Required and Interpersonal Tension.

Matt. 5:23-24 and Matt 18:15ff both provide the urgency and steps in healthy conflict resolution. The key that I have seen over and over again is 'keeping it between the two of you'. As leaders, we must have the courage to ask someone who is complaining about someone else if they have already talked with them directly. If they haven’t then tell them to zip it. When you say ‘zip it’ make sure you have a smile on your face:). Seriously, the point is to be clear and yet loving in your response. Check out the appendix on pg. 201 for more guidelines.

Now go out, rub up against people, resolve conflict in a healthy way when it arises, become one and participate in the cosmic redemption story.

Walking the Small Group Tightrope-Chapter 3 Meeting the Relational Challenge

(I ask some questions below… find my answers in the comments… and then YOU continue the discussion!!!!!)

Chapter 3 deals with meeting the relational challenge of balancing friendship and accountability. In addressing that issue the author asks “How many people in your life have “refrigerator rights?

BLOG DISCUSSION QUESTION: What about your LifeGroup, do people have permission to dig around in each others’ refrigerators or do the members in your Group stand in front of their own refrigerator doors afraid someone might open it and see what’s inside? What are the parameters surrounding “doing life” together? What about your role as leader in your Group, do you practice self-disclosure?

The author states that the question of refrigerator rights gets right to the heart of your LifeGroup’s relational challenge.

BLOG DISCUSSION QUESTION: The author discusses that the polarity point that exists between friendship and accountability is called authentic relationship. In other words, do the relationships in your group or even more personally, your relationship as a Leader with the people in your Group, only function at the level of friendship or are you/or the people in your Group willing to love each other with an agape love—the type of love that requires us to challenge each other to change and grow?

When was the last time someone challenged you personally to grow? Were you offended or did you accept the challenge and learn from it? When was the last time YOU challenged someone personally or “spoke the truth in love”? How was that received?

The author states that “friendship draws us into a group, but unless someone is willing to challenge us and help us grow; most of us won’t stick with the group. Deepening friendships must intentionally bring increasing accountability to the relationship. ”In order for us to establish an environment that fosters authentic relationship a Group must be well-lit, or be a place where we can shine the light of truth on what is happening in our lives. That requires that our Group be seen as a safe place. The author states there are 5 practices that we must put in place in order to establish authentic relationships within our Groups. They are:

To know and be known—each person can tell their story and each person’s story is known. This requires self-disclosure and vulnerability.

To love and be loved—-when we find out things about each other that we don’t like we choose to like them anyway.

To serve and be served—when a member is in a crisis how does the Group respond in their time of need.

To admonish and be admonished—is speaking the truth in love fostered or feared.

To celebrate and be celebrated—does your Group celebrate what God is doing in individual’s lives as well as the Group as a whole.

BLOG DISCUSSION QUESTION (BDQ): Which of the 5 practices above does your LifeGroup do well and which ones need to be honed? What can you do as a Leader to encourage your LifeGroup to grow in all of the 5 practices?

Meeting the relational challenge—are you up for it??

Tammy

Walking the Small Group Tightrope – Chapter 2 – The Development Challenge

(I ask some questions below… find my answers in the comments… and then YOU continue the discussion!!!!!)

Chapter 2 of the book is a really great discussion on the tension between discipleship and care in our groups. Should we be about growing as committed Christ-followers or should we care deeply for each other in our groups? The answer is BOTH!

BLOG DISCUSSION QUESTION: Have you been in or led a group where you felt out of balance between discipleship and care?

The authors call the place in the middle – between discipleship and care – intentional shepherding. The authors use the word intentional because often people do shepherding in reactive mode. They see a need and meet it. Intentional shepherding involves both meeting needs that arise AND guiding the group and its members proactively to be all Christ has for us to be.

I think the diagram on page 53 is very useful.

BLOG DISCUSSION QUESTION: Which quadrant of that diagram are you biased toward and best at – teaching or nurturing? Which quadrant is your LifeGroup biased toward?

I like how the authors say: “Awareness is 70% of the deal here, and when you notice your bias taking over, you can adjust.”

BLOG DISCUSSION QUESTION (BDQ): If you tend to be more of a “teacher”, what are the factors that keep you from nurturing more? If you tend to nurture easily, what are the factors that keep you from strongly moving your group forward in discipleship toward Christ-likeness?

As leaders live in the place of “intentional shepherding” the book talks about how at Willow Creek they use the framework of the “5 G’s” in their church. These five G-words are very close to Legacy’s five purposes to worship, reach, connect, grow and serve.

BDQ: How do you think that building LifeGroups balanced around the five purposes relates to striking a balance between discipleship and caring?

I love how the authors wisely advise leaders to first build a relationship with their apprentices. They call leaders to practice a healthy balance of discipleship and nurturing with their apprentices. Once you work through this with your apprentice, you’ll be better equipped to intentionally shepherd your other group members. (If you don’t yet have an apprentice yet, find one! Just look for a teachable person in your group with LifeGroup leadership potential and a shepherd’s heart.)

 

I’m enjoying this book. I hope you are!

 

Allen

My Story: Allen

In order to build some community among us as leaders and to tie to the current series "Found" on Sundays I want to have each of the LifeGroup Coaches share their "My Story" each week here on the blog.

I'll start us off and then other coaches will take a turn in coming weeks.

My life before meeting Christ…

I grew up in a religious home where I was in church from a young age. Though I had have good parents, they did not really help me much spiritually beyond taking me to church. I did gain a knowledge of who Christ is and even walked forward to "accept Christ" at a Vacation Bible School event, but my going forward was really more about copying my cousin's action than really experiencing a change of heart.

Throughout my teenage years I was a pretty good kid, but I did have my life focused on things other than Christ. I excelled in school in order to become an adult who could make a lot of money and have a powerful career. I started out majoring in Architecture and then changed to engineering. At the same time, though, God was moving in my life. I could have easliy drifted from the church upon entering college. I shutter to think where I would be today if God had not orchestrated (using my parents) a "chance" introduction to a church that was perfect for me. At that church I saw people who really had purpose. They loved God and they loved me. I began to want what they had. I realized that I was living by myself and for myself and that I was empty.

When I met Christ…

As I struggled between the purposeful, amazing life of my new friends and the selfish desire in my own heart, I came one night to the "end of my rope". I won't say that I had a "vision", but I do have a picture in my head of a rope that was my life. I was sliding down the rope and almost to the end. Was I supposed to tie a knot and hold on for dear life, or was I going to fall off into chaos? One night in my college dorm room, I knew that I didn't like either of those options. I saw that God has a "rope"… a path… a plan for my life. I decided that night very vividly to move one of my hands from my rope (or plan) to God's rope. I lasted about one week that way — with one hand grasping God's rope and the other hand clinging to my own. At the end of that week, I decided it was futile to remain caught between two ropes, and I moved my second hand to God's rope. I told God I would go wherever He led.

When I was ten, I had believed in my head the things Jesus had done to rescue me from my sin. But it was at age 20 that I decided to follow Jesus with my whole life.

Since I met Christ…

That first week of fully following Christ was incredible. I had never experienced that kind of true joy. I grew in many ways for the remainder of college. Memorizing scripture was one of the things that grew me the most initially and still today. In the last few years, I've really been moved by the vision our pastor has given us at Legacy Church. My early discipleship had mainly been growing a love for God's word and for Him. At Legacy in the last 8 years, I've grown not only to love God and His word but also to love what He loves… people. I don't want to just soak in more of God. I want to enjoy God and soak in His love, but then pour it out to others through service and sacrificial leadership.

The last year has been my hardest ever as Debbie and I dealt with her mother's cancer, shingles, car accident and long term care decisions. I'm amazed at God's mercy and grace through all of this. Were it not for His Spirit bearing fruit in me, I never could have put down my selfishness and to be kind, loving, gentle and patient as Deb's mom lived for a year in our home.

I'm still a work in progress and I've got a long way to go to be all Christ wants me be to.

God is so good to us. We don't deserve anything… not another breath. I hope that I am always diligent to tell my story and give the gift of Christ's love to others.

Allen 

Walking the Small Group Tightrope – Chap. 1 ‘The learning challenge’

I am excited about how we as LifeGroup leaders can lead healthier LifeGroups and form community together through reading this book and discussing it on this blog. As a talker versus a writer, I also look forward to our time face-to-face the week of April 9 when we discuss the first half of this book in person (more details to come). Let’s dive in.

Polarity Management is a new term for me. The book by Barry Johnson was published in 1992. Check out a Polarity Map on work/home balance. Has anyone read the book? Been trained in Polarity Mgmt? And/or used it personally or professionally?

“Instead of looking for right answers and nice little definitions, sometimes it’s better to identify and manage the tensions that exist between two desirable truths” This is the basic concept of Polarity Management and I am looking forward to applying it to LifeGroups.

The Learning Challenge – Truth………………………..Life

Where does your group fall on this continuum?

As a church we have chosen to emphasize ‘life’ hence the term LifeGroups. This was partially driven by the realities that unapplied truth creates hypocrites versus disciple makers and how easy it is for a group to simply transfer information. However, there is an equal danger of untrue life creating untransformed/confused people versus disciple makers. We want Spiritual Transformation.

So, how do we manage this tension? Bill and Russ have four suggestions:

• Connect scripture with story

This is exactly what Bob Barker is doing with his Epic project. Bob has stopped preaching and has simple started telling the stories. How good of a story teller are you?

• Turn questions into discussions

You don’t ask a question in order to get an answer you ask a question in order to generate discussion. I really like the statement about ‘stating the truths before asking your question’. This grounds the discussion in truth, but the question allows the truth to play itself out in life.

• Practice active listening

We as leaders must be great listeners and must pray continually in order to discern when a holy moment is near.

• Vary learning styles

Admit it. We like creative things, but rarely spend the time it takes to make them happen in our group. When we do, we usually get tremendous response, whether it is acting out a story, drawing, listening/singing to music, creative praying etc. Here is one idea we did several years ago: Ask everyone to bring a family picture, swap pictures and allow their picture to remind you to pray for them for a week.

Which one of these do you feel you are best at? Need more help in? Will try this week?

What other thoughts do you have from chapter 1?

Welcome to our new blog!

Welcome to our new blog for Legacy’s LifeGroup Leadership! We’ll use this space for sharing info, discussing leadership and ministry topics, for prayer, for discussing books and training material, for… well… lots of things. This is where we’ll begin to discuss the book, “Walking the Small Group Tightrope”, next week. I encourage you to make this a prominent button or bookmark on your browser.

Make a comment today just to let me know you’re out there!!!!!!

Coming soon! Book Discussion

We’ll begin discussing the book “Walking the Small Group Tightrope” here the week of March 26. Join us!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Arnn Family Happenings: Trophies!

Alex’s taekwondo school had a mock tournament today within the school so the kids can practice competing and succeeding. He tried hard and is so proud of his trophies.

See more photos at my flikr… http://www.flickr.com/photos/allentexas/

Have you or your kids done any taekwondo? What benefits did it afford?